Gyles Brandreth’s Diary
After 30 years of double vision and headaches, I finally visited a neurologist and learnt the truth...
Are you having headaches, too?
Mine started last July, in the first break between lockdowns. I had had them before, in the 1990s when I was an MP, but those were simply mild migraines – a bit of double vision and a light throbbing on the right side of the head. And they were quick to cure: 20 minutes with my eyes shut in one of the leather armchairs in the Quiet Room of the House of Commons Library and I’d be as right as rain again. These new headaches wouldn’t go away.
And they got worse. As summer turned to autumn, the occasional thumping head turned into a daily horror story. I would wake with pulsing pains in my temples.
Every time I coughed or sneezed or strained, there were sharp, lancing pains on either side of my skull. They had me yelping out loud. Standing up wasn’t too bad, but bending over, even slightly, brought on a dull, foggy pain all over my head. At night, I lay in bed as still as I could, willing the throbbing to go away. It didn’t.
I saw the GP three times. Was it my posture? It’s never been good. Was it my diet? I do overdo the chocolates and cheese. Was it the way I sit at the computer screen, head pushed forward, eyes straining at the print? I have been writing a book and sitting at the desk eight hours a day.
I varied my diet, got my eyes tested and took more exercise. Still the headaches persisted: bad in the morning, worse in the evening and worst of all, off and on, in the night.
Eventually, the GP sent me to see a consultant neurologist and the great man – a world authority on dementia, Parkinson’s disease and strokes – questioned, prodded and poked me for an hour before sending me off for an MRI scan.
Have you had an MRI scan? They are not for the faint-hearted or the claustrophobic: 40 minutes strapped inside a cylindrical coffin with hideous banging, buzzing and clanking sounds as the magnetic resonance imaging machine does its stuff.
I did not like it, but I knew it had to be done because, frankly, the headaches had become unendurable and I needed to know the worst.
Just 24 hours later, I was back at the hospital, sitting face to face with the consultant. He lit up his screen and showed me the image of my skull and spine. He took me on a guided tour of the workings of my cranium and said, quite simply, ‘I’m liking what I’m seeing. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.’
That was three weeks ago. I haven’t had a headache since. After six months in hell, I’m in heaven. It turns out that Hamlet was right: ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
I am so glad it seems I am going to live, because I have been invited to be a judge at the finals of the International Talk Like a Pirate Contest later in the year and it’s an event I don’t want to miss. The contest is part of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, an annual celebration started in 1995, which encourages likeminded people around the world to greet one another every 19th September with a suitably piratical ‘Oo-arr!’ and ‘Ahoy me hearties!’
Pirate speak was pioneered in the 1934 film Treasure Island, starring Lionel Barrymore as Long John Silver.
It was consolidated and made truly universal by the great Robert Newton, official patron saint of Talk Like a Pirate Day, who portrayed pirates in several films, notably the 1950 Disney version of Treasure Island and Blackbeard the Pirate in 1952.
It is because of Newton, born in Dorset, educated in Cornwall, that across the world a West Country burr is the go-to accent when anyone wants to sound like a pirate.
Because of his prowess in pirate parts and his reputation as a heavy drinker, Newton is severely underrated. He is a beautiful actor. Catch him in David Lean’s directorial debut, This Happy Breed (1944), to see him at his subtle best.
His fee for the film was £9,000, with a penalty of £500 to be deducted every time filming had to be delayed because of his drinking. By the time the film was completed, Newton wasn’t due a penny – but his performance was so compelling (and he was so charming) that the film company paid him anyway. He died of drink and a heart attack aged 50, 65 years ago, on 25th March 1956. He is my kind of hero.
Mothering Sunday falls on 14th March this year.
My friend Dave went into a shop and asked for flowers. The woman behind the counter said, ‘I’m sorry – we don’t sell flowers.’ ‘But you’re open,’ protested Dave. ‘We are allowed to be open,’ explained the woman, ‘because we are a circumcision clinic.’ Said Dave, ‘But you’ve got flowers in the window.’ Said the woman, ‘What do you expect us to put in the window?’